EcoSeagate
Do I see value in the EcoSeagate team development
process? In a word, no. Frankly, the EcoSeagate team development
process is frightening. Of course, I have
not experienced this process; I have only seen the videos. The activities seem extreme and the
environment is bizarre. While the
participants were in company briefings, lectures covered trust, conflict,
commitment, and accountability. These
are very basic discussion topics for a two-million-dollar retreat and extreme challenge
adrenaline festival. The native rituals
complete with authentic wardrobe, dancing, and unintelligible chanting rounds
things off nicely. It does not surprise
me to learn that the Seagate CEO, Bill Watkins, has received criticism from
stock holders about these events (Brown, 2011),
While EcoSeagate is over the top for me, I cannot condemn every outdoor
experiential training program that exists.
There are too many testimonials to ignore that swear to the benefits of these
programs.
Like many other outdoor experiential laboratory
training programs, Watkins cannot provide quantitative data to prove the
success of EcoSeagate (Brown, 2011).
This is a concern as companies spend hundreds of millions of dollars each
year on this type of training (Williams, et al., 2003). The promise of
improved leadership skills, team building, improved problem-solving skills,
increased trust, and improved communication from these training programs makes
it easy to understand why companies find them so attractive. However, showing that outdoor experiential
training is a smart investment is far more difficult. “Adherents of OET believe that there is a
good return on investment. However, they
have commonly reached that conclusion intuitively, through what they believe to
be reasonable assumptions. We know of no
published studies of the ROI of OET” (Williams, et al., 2003, para. 3)
Why would something like this be
necessary in a high-performing organization?
High-performing teams are like other teams. The members need to grow in terms of their leadership
abilities, interpersonal relationships, teamwork, and trust or they will not be
able to maintain that level of performance.
According to Brown (2011), “participants often learn how to improve their
teamwork back on the job. Interpersonal
barriers that inhibit effective teamwork are often broken down, and members
learn to trust and work with one another” (p. 274).
Could my organization benefit from a
similar activity? Yes, I believe the Air
Force can and does benefit from similar activities. It begins with basic military training. Recruits are quickly broken down to their most
vulnerable form then slowly rebuilt into an Airman. Airmen know the importance of teamwork, leadership,
trust, and appropriate interpersonal relationships. They learn these lessons after they have been
taken out of their normal, comfortable environment and stripped of everything
but their identity. Lessons come from
classrooms, obstacle courses, and field exercises and they learn because they
are out of their environment. Their
attention is focused, because they do not know what will come next. This training is longer in duration and
easily as intense as outdoor experiential training. It has been measured for decades and proven
to be successful.
All professional military education
courses have similar activities with similar goals: teamwork, leadership, and
relationships. Outside of these courses
and to a lesser degree, intramural sports, squadron fun days, and community projects
serve to encourage the same topics.
I started this Blog intent on condemning
outdoor experiential laboratory training as an expensive excuse for companies
to go outside and play. Then I realized I am a product of similar programs which forced me to look at things differently. Yes, they very well may be expensive play, but there are benefits associated with that play. Finding a way to measure the success of these
programs is important because not all play qualifies. It would be good to be able to tell the
difference. Williams, et al., (2003)
explains and provides the formulas for measuring ROI associated with outdoor
experiential training. Yet, fifteen years
later, there is still little to no research to quantify the value of these
programs for leadership and team development.
~Pete
P.S.
I still feel the same about EcoSeagate.
It is quite bizarre.
References
Brown, D. R. (2011). An experiential approach to
organization development (8th ed.). Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall.
Williams, S. D., Graham, T. S., &
Baker, B. (2003). Evaluating outdoor experiential training for leadership and
team building. The Journal of Management Development, 22(1), 45-59.
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